Washington:

Coverage to All Children

Results

The initiative is being implemented over a five-year period beginning in July 2007 through 2012. The first phase of the program was implemented in July 2007 and there are some early results to report.

• Automatic enrollment for 8,000 newly-eligible children. In July 2007, coverage for immigrant children was raised from 100 percent to 250 percent of the federal poverty level (FPL). Through working with staff from HRSA (the state Medicaid and SCHIP agency), advocates learned that the state knew of 8,000 children who were eligible for coverage because they had siblings who were citizens enrolled in either Medicaid or SCHIP. The Health Coalition for Children and Youth (HCCY) successfully advocated for these “known eligible children” to be automatically enrolled when the program became available to them in July 2007.
  
  
• Pilots to address retention underway. The legislation also directed HRSA to develop strategies to improve program retention and decrease churning, when eligible children disenroll from coverage only to later return to the program. Currently, pilots are underway to address these problems. The state will begin to test three different strategies to improve retention in January 2008: renewals over the phone; allowing families to renew if they are within three months of their scheduled redetermination date; and implementing a new streamlined renewal form. Data will be collected until the summer of 2008, at which point a decision will be made by the state about utilizing one or all of the strategies statewide.

Finally the legislation requires an evaluation of key elements of the program including the efficacy of outreach to enroll eligible children, how many fewer children are uninsured, and overall improvements in children’s health as measured by indicators such as well-child visits, immunizations, and dental visits. These results will be delivered in a report to the legislature and will be available at a later date.

For updates on Washington's program visit the health section of the Children's Alliance's Web site.